Erika Dreifus

Toward the end of each week, the My Machberet blog presents a collection of links, drawn primarily from the world of Jewish books and writing.

• Now available: the debut issue of Me’guelet, “a new online publication of Jewish art, ritual, and creative writing about pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.”
• Open for submissions for its next issue until August 20: The Poison Well, which “seeks Jewish writing with a touch of darkness. Any genre goes, but we especially like mystery, thriller and horror. What we really want, though, is to see the Jewish world and Jewish experiences better represented in genre fiction. We want Jewish settings, Jewish characters, Jewish problems, Jewish culture, Jewish everything—as long as there’s still a good story and emotional core behind it all that keeps us reading.” (No fee to submit; no payment for published work.)
• Coming soon to the Puget Sound region of Washington state, “the area around and including the booming tech hub of Seattle”: The Jewish Sound, “a digital-first publication that will operate as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit” (as reported by Jay Deitch for eJewish Philanthropy).
• Jewish Book Council is advertising for a Direc­tor of Part­ner­ships & Com­mu­ni­ty Engage­ment, “a new­ly cre­at­ed full-time senior lead­er­ship role to sup­port JBC in this trans­for­ma­tion­al moment….The right can­di­date will be a senior pro­fes­sion­al who brings both a deep under­stand­ing of the Jew­ish com­mu­nal land­scape and a gen­uine pas­sion for books and read­ing.” This hybrid position is based in New York. Salary range: “$115,000 to $135,000 (based on expe­ri­ence), plus benefits.” Deadline: “JBC antic­i­pates that the inter­view process will begin in ear­ly Sep­tem­ber. JBC will con­tin­ue to accept resumes and cov­er let­ters until the can­di­date search is complete.”
• And registration is open for a free September 16 webinar titled, “What’s Nu? Jewish Children’s and Young Adult Books, Fall/Winter Preview,” hosted by Booklist in cooperation with the American Library Association’s Jewish Information Committee. (I’ve already signed up!)

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And icymi:

Source: Haley Cohen, “New Jewish Ventures Aim to Publish What Mainstream Houses Won’t — Israeli Stories, Jewish Names and All” (Jewish Insider)

Last week I was interviewed by Jewish Insider‘s Haley Cohen for an article about some recent publisher-related developments (which I first referenced in July 30’s “Jewish Literary Links”).

But as I indicated in my conversation with Cohen, we’re going to need more than a few new publishers or imprints to deal with what’s going on in the literary/publishing ecosystem. (What I didn’t manage to communicate to Cohen: my belief that all of us who care about Jewish books and writing are going to have to be more coordinated and universally informed about various efforts than we are right now.)

Now that I’m saying this much publicly, I’m starting to tell people something else: I have an idea that might help. At the moment, I’m sharing it with just a few other people to get feedback, advice, and suggestions. But I very much hope to have more to say about it soon.

Shabbat shalom.